My Why

I still can’t quite decide if starting a wedding planning business during a pandemic was either the most brilliant idea I’ve ever had, or the most stupid, but I’ll tell you one thing – I’m sure having a lot of fun!

I am about 6 months into my career as your wedding girl Friday so I thought I’d share my WHY.

Growing up, I had aspirations of being an author – I have always loved fiction and writing and tried my hand at a few creative writing camps and classes. Then I went to college and obtained a music diploma as a vocalist. When I was 24, after planning my first wedding, a friend and I had talked about starting a party planning business, but we both lacked follow-through. So I landed in retail, spending the majority of my working life in management, followed by childcare, insurance sales, and finally administration. Every single job was simply for a paycheque and none of them “filled my bucket” except for when I was pregnant with my second son and I started designing and teaching card-making classes for the scrapbook store I managed. I love it so much and I found an outlet for my creative juices again, but the world went digital and demand fell for hands-on classes.

In 2020 I was working as an administrator. I enjoyed my job and, as the go-to person for coordinating the holiday parties, I got to be creative again. I was also in the midst of planning my own wedding, but then Covid hit our world and everything in my little bubble got turned upside down. I got laid off, we postponed our wedding and life as I knew it had completely changed.

They say when one door closes, another one opens. Having that time allowed me to think about what I wanted to do with my life, what was important to me, what I was good at. It wasn’t until a job offer landed on my doorstep that I realized that I had hit a fork in the road – take another “just a job” or follow the dream I’d actually had when I was 24.

“If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.

– Bishop t. d. jakes

The entire reason I chose to be a wedding planner was because I got to follow my heart – I love love, and that’s no BS… it gives me all the fuzzies to watch and see love stories unfold before my eyes. I want to use my talents and create an impact for my couples. I want to make dreams come true so that those couples get their fairytale beginning and THAT is what matters to me. If I can help with that by following my passion, then right there gives me that sense of purpose I had always felt like I’d been missing.

One day, at a financial conference, the speaker talked about this book by Robin Sharma and read an excerpt recounting the 10 Human Regrets from his book “The Leader Who Had No Title”. I’d like to share them with you now.

1. You reach your last day with the brilliant song that your life was meant to sing still silent within you.

2. You reach your last day without ever having experienced the natural power that inhibits you to do great work and achieve great things.

3. You reach your last day realizing that you never inspired anyone else by the example that you set.

4. You reach your last day full of pain at the realization that you never took any bold risks and so you never received any bright rewards.

5. You reach your last day realizing that you missed the opportunity to catch a glimpse of mastery because you bought into the lie that you had to be resigned to mediocrity.

6. You reach your last day and feel heartbroken that you never learned the skill of transforming adversity into victory and lead into gold.

7. You reach your last day regretting that you forgot that work is about being radically helpful to others rather than being helpful only to yourself.

8. You reach your last day with the awareness that you ended up living the life that society trained you to want versus leading the life you truly wanted to have.

9. You reach your last day and awaken to the fact that you never realized your absolute best nor touched the special genius that you were built to become.

10. You reach your last day and discover you could have been a leader and left this world so much better than you found it. But you refused to accept that mission because you were just too scared. And so you failed. And wasted a life.

I don’t know about you, but these words REALLY hit home for me. I’m going to leave you here with this: we are ALL put on this earth to bring richness to it, to follow a path that leads to personal fulfillment, joy and passion.

And I have found mine.